after Denise Riley
Landscapecombingmy reflectionin the rain-
charcoal tearspassing across
streakedwindow
the calmingswish of leaves
the glass an emptymeeting place
washed greywith concrete matterhey that’s
my face in the
fall-
ing rain
_flitting by_three engines roaring
unisono
as three hearts rrrrrrattlingt–rrrracingsb–rrrragging
in my ears
I am, I am, I am
here portered by a-lone
a-lass a- long the M6
iamb-freeeeee
heldinhearing creatures skating in
thisporous
container
wherewe fryformoreair
andcarveour wayout
of the stuffed turkey to tinned cranberry sauce!
always cuttingin-to ourselveswhere lyric tugsfor re-alignment I I.le pas, en-core
and for stringent accuracy to spite transparent odds where subject and/or object are one and/or k-not in the same end
it is here we make odd and’s meet because if I were to tell you now that the bleeding’s
stopped–we followed the carver through to the edge see–that lyric’s just a motor running any way–through me, in me, to you, across
our traces in a GoBus window, facing the left– would ye hear me out here in the clear or give
in to the mist where ye miss yourself bleating out my clarion calls somewhere down a staggering
line of shrubs and shrugs? You know it rains true in Galway just like this when it doesn’t align itself
too neatly round the edges but curls itself right
round your tongue. You don’t want my fogbows in a- jar on Prospect Hill cradling the Rhatigan crane, so
I give you a splash of rain in a bowl of light. Now lyric truth’s set, in motion–my motion’s spelled with an E though
at the start right where green spills into amarillo—
_if you rub it, it’s vanilla!–ink’s ebbing–_see,
you cannot capture it evenly even now when looking out again for yourself in the window seat because
it’s never this straight-forward once you let your heartstrings sound in another s-hell: k-not until they come in swiftly tailored with the rain re- tailored again coming in with the rain and ring true straight from my mouth. In-two. Yours. Sincerely,
Tiana M. Fischer